History was made when a baby turtle emerged from its sandy nursery around 7:15pm on Friday night.
Less than two inches long and as heavy as a large strawberry, the olive ridley turtle is the first native to California.
The lone hatchling waited for two hours on a pile of sand and eggs in a Styrofoam cooler, the Aquarium of the Pacific’s makeshift incubator, where a clutch of eggs on Seal Beach were laid on Sept. 16 since late September.
Then another little turtle appeared. There is another one.
Soon, the contents of the cooler “went from looking like smooth sand to an explosion of baby turtles,” said Dr. Lance Adams, director of veterinary services at the aquarium. “It’s very exciting. And very, very cute.”
A total of 54 baby turtles emerged. Aquarium staff and federal biologists gently transferred them onto transport vehicles and transported them from the Long Beach facility to a site near the original nest in Seal Beach.
They placed them on the beach and watched as all 54 hatchlings rushed into the sea and disappeared into the waves.
Adams said there are 50 eggs left in the cooler that may hatch in the next few days.
A second refrigerated box containing 104 eggs, laid Sept. 19 in Huntington Beach, is also being kept in the aquarium’s temperature- and humidity-controlled room.
As biologists celebrated the successful release of these hatchlings, disappointing news came from Ventura. On November 1, a third olive ridley turtle nest appeared at San Buenaventura State Beach.
Olive ridley turtle hatchlings have been released into the wild after their eggs successfully hatched at the nonprofit Aquarium of the Pacific.
(Aquarium of the Pacific)
Sand temperatures recorded in recent days are significantly lower than those at the olive ridley turtle’s usual nesting grounds. Then Friday’s high tide washed away the sand from the nest, exposing the eggs.
“It pretty much destroyed the nest,” said Jonathan Snyder, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The few eggs that were not washed away by the waves were deemed unviable and removed from the beach, he said.
Since the first known sea turtles nested on the U.S. West Coast, no one has been sure whether sea turtle eggs are fertilized or viable.
Olive ridley turtles are commonly found in tropical areas of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans, with large nesting populations in Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Before September, the farthest known northern nest was about 700 miles south of Orange County in Baja California Sur, Mexico.
Extreme marine heat waves and strong El Niño conditions have brought water temperatures in Southern California close to those found at typical sea turtle nesting sites.
On September 29, federal biologists made a last-minute decision to relocate the Orange County eggs to an aquarium after forecasters predicted that high tides would submerge the nests.
Aquarium staff have been carefully monitoring the claws for weeks and trying to maintain “artificial conditions that mimic ideal natural conditions,” Adams said.
The incubation period for this species is usually 45 to 60 days. The first hatchlings emerge 55 days after laying eggs.
No one yet knows whether this year’s turtles are an anomaly or the first of many to nest on California beaches in the future. Staff urge the public to keep an eye out for the animals and report any sightings to lifeguards or NOAA at (562) 506-4315.